Handful of states drive most US executions
Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma plan to execute inmates Thursday in what would be the first time in nearly 16 years that three people are put to death on the same day in the United States.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, described the same-day scheduling as highly unusual but largely a coincidence of scheduling.
“You look at the country as a whole, you’ve just got this little pocket of five or six states that are using the death penalty, executing people, and a small number of states that are still imposing new death sentences,” Maher said. She said it is highly unusual to have three executions on one day, although it is largely a scheduling coincidence.
The executions come as a small number of states, including the three with scheduled lethal injections Thursday, drive execution numbers across the country.
Eleven states executed a total of 47 people in 2025, the highest number since 2009. Florida accounted for most of the surge with 19 executions. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas each carried out five. Tennessee carried out three. Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona and Indiana each carried out two. Louisiana and Missouri each carried out one execution.
The 19 executions so far in 2026 have occurred in four states. Florida, which again leads the country, executed two inmates on the same day in July.
The last time three executions were held on the same day was Jan. 7, 2010, when Louisiana, Ohio and Texas put inmates to death. Three executions were scheduled on the same day in 2018, but only one went forward after a Texas man was granted a reprieve and prison officials in Alabama had problems with the IV line.